Home Again

Dean finally had his knee operated on on 12/30. It was injured in the summer compliments of Army combatives, and all this time they've had him going to useless physical therapy that clearly wasn't doing him any good. There were broken chunks of bone and cartilage floating around in the joint which were causing further damage all this time. One of the tendons that holds the patella in place was torn, so when Dean was anesthetized the surgeon moved the patella around, and could see how it had clearly been dislocated upon injury. He replaced the torn tendon with a "new" one from a cadaver to help keep the patella in place. He also fixed up the cartilage and bone and took out the floaters. It took about 2.5 hours. Some generous and kind hearted friends took Hunter and Kyler for the day (starting at 4:30 am) so that I could take Dean to Wilmington and be there with him. He was released on the 31st mid afternoon. Around 10pm it started hurting more and more and his low grade fever started rising again. We called the nurse advice line at the naval hospital and didn't get any good info (the surgereon must have been revelling in the new year, as he didn't answer our page). So I called the ER and a useful guy named Tony answered and gave some good advice, namely to double the percocet, so Dean proceeded to sleep pretty well overnight. Dean will be convalescing for a month at home. He wears a gigantic brace on the leg. So that's how we rang in the New Year. I actually went to the neighbors' party with Hunter and Kyler for a little while, and was taught some dance moves by an older black guy, ha ha.